Tuesday, 30 August 2011

Recruitment and perceptual mapping

Recruitment and selection is one of the major functions of the human resource department in the organisation. The recruitment process is not only about the employers identifying a suitable fit for the organisation but also about candidates finding more about the business, and considering whether the organisation is one where they would like to work. The experience of the candidate at each stage of the recruitment process will impact their view of the organisation. With an increasing interest in the nascent idea of ‘employer branding’, more employers are now giving thought to providing an overall positive experience to the candidates. Various attributes can be identified that impact the perception of the candidates who are witnesses to the recruitment process of the organisation.

Perception mapping is defined as a graphic technique that attempts to visually display the perceptions of an individual. It can be multi dimensional. This method might bring about positioning of various attributes into one category on the basis of any kind of similarity that might be perceived by the candidate.

Some of the attributes can be:

·Information provided regarding the pre-requisites of the interview

·Time lapse between the call and the actual interview

·Communication

·Interaction with panellists

·Interaction with HR

·Negotiations by HR

·Interaction with HR personnel after selection

·Query resolution by personnel after selection until offer

·Overall experience

All these attributes can be interpreted using first level analysis methods i.e. descriptive statistics. This would give a fair idea of how an organisation scores on the various attributes by the candidates. Perceptual mapping can be done for the various attributes on the basis of the responses received and thus the perceived relations between the responses can thus be interpreted. The attributes can be grouped into pairs on the basis of their relevance to each other and the positioning of the brand as per the attributes can be evaluated.

Recommendations can be made on the basis of the perceptual mapping to the organisation in order to improve their recruitment and selection processes which would in turn help them in ‘branding’ the organisation thus giving a positive first impression.